


Scenes from a Conflagration

by MenaceAnon



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, be the fic you want to see in the world, era-typical xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-12 15:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9079567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MenaceAnon/pseuds/MenaceAnon
Summary: "You'll see what I can do to him."
Jefferson knows he ought to say something, ought to roll his eyes, but there’s some strange sense of urgency making his thoughts fuzzy, and then Hamilton starts to grin – slow, toothy, victorious.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In a perfect world I would write 50k of heady, slow-burn Jamilton. I don’t really have the time, skill, or fortitude, though, so instead I’ll just be writing a few key scenes from that theoretical longfic, and publishing them here.  
>   
> This first chapter started life as a Tumblr comment that exploded out of control (you can thank [problhams](http://problhams.tumblr.com/)). It's a little rougher than the chapters that will follow, because it's an impatient rewrite and I'm on cough syrup.  
>   
> More characters will be added as they appear. **Rating will probably go up.**

Here is how it begins: Hamilton in fighting form, backlit by a pair of windows and riding the relentless current of his own bullshit across the Cabinet Chamber. This is commonplace, though the Secretary of the Treasury doesn’t have the good grace to let it get boring. Jefferson waits with his arms folded, chin down. The side of his thumb strokes the smooth spot on the cap of his cane at the downbeat of Hamilton’s steps.  
  
“Of course there is a place for idealism. Of course. But that place is not the halls of Government,” Hamilton says, and then pauses for the first time in a while, presumably to let everyone admire the long-awaited return of his thesis.  
  
Jefferson unfolds his arms and eases one step forward. “All of which makes me think that Secretary Hamilton is confused, again, about the difference between ‘idealism’ and ‘the basic necessities required for a new nation to prosper.’ Easy mistake, but maybe he’d like to have a nice, quiet sit-down and get his thoughts together.”  
  
“Ha, yes.” The brief, nasty flash of Hamilton’s teeth shines white as he bounces on his toes. “Well, _Secretary Hamilton_ reminds the Cabinet that we must come to a decision by midday tomorrow–”  
  
“That can’t happen if you don’t stop talking before midday tomorrow.”  
  
“It is unfortunate that I need to explain the basics of a modern economy to you at length,” Hamilton sneers, and that is _enough_.  
  
“I might question your qualifications as a teacher,” Jefferson coos through his teeth, pulling the words over his accent like tar.  
  
Hamilton does not misunderstand. He goes perfectly still, gleaming dust motes sinking, slow as molasses, around his shoulders.  
  
And then he swirls toward Jefferson like the tongue of a flame.  
  
It’s a sudden intrusion on Jefferson’s space, Hamilton nearly on his toes and still straining forward, their eyes locked, and Jefferson retreats, fluttering back like a startled bird.  
  
Hamilton’s hair is mussed, frazzled strands glinting gold as the sun blazes low behind him. His shadowed eyes look nearly black and as deep as wells.  
  
Jefferson knows he ought to say something, ought to roll his eyes, but there’s some strange sense of urgency making his thoughts fuzzy, and when Hamilton then starts to grin – slow, toothy, victorious – he feels pinned, heat prickling up his spine.  
  
Hamilton, never satisfied, takes another step, and Jefferson’s shoulders sway back before he comes up snarling, feinting in a snap like a man ready for a fist fight (uncouth, almost Hamiltonian, certainly not a response fit for a southern gentleman, but it seems to be effective). Hamilton backs off, still grinning. Abruptly Jefferson feels the rest of the room watching, noticing, and drums up an irritated lapel tug, that belated overblown eye-roll. He twirls himself out of Hamilton’s shadow to drape his long body against the panelling.  
  
Madison gives him a look, after. Jefferson grits his teeth and goes on an inspired rant about uppity creole bastards, but, as the case occasionally is, the sense that Madison sees with preternatural clarity is not particularly soothing. Part of Jefferson wants to ask what he sees, but instead he makes insultingly transparent excuses that Madison knows better than to be (too) offended by, and swans out of the office.  
  
There’s a crackling tension in his shoulders and down his back, restless and somehow deeply unsettling. There is also still work to be done today, and while Jefferson tends to go and come as he pleases, it occurs to him that the tiny yet well-appointed library in the building, only a quarter of the way explored, would be the perfect place to discharge this static in his bones. He snags a satchel from his office and makes his way, soothed by the mere thought.  
  
That meagre ounce of peace lasts until he arrives. Jefferson freezes in the library doorway, the prickle under his skin swarming back, amplified. Hamilton is standing in the long tongue of light from the one tall window, an open book cradled in his arm, a finger tracing down the page, but he’s staring straight at Thomas, a reflexive look of irritation fading away to the ghost of that damn grin. He snaps the book shut and takes a deliberate step.  
  
“Mr. Secretary.”  
  
Jefferson, furious, plants his cane in front of himself and leans his weight forward, mouth pinching, eyebrows climbing – a look he’d give his misbehaving daughter.  
  
“Underfoot, Hamilton.”  
  
Normally this would be enough to set Hamilton off, drive him into an entertainingly energetic offensive. Instead he only takes a second step, third step, closing, and for some reason the air between them feels thick as Virginia in August.  
  
Jefferson’s eyes skitter away from Hamilton’s like water on a hot skillet. He drags them back, confused at himself, pops his cane up into his hand, and takes a single step that ought to be the start of an easy swagger into the room. The room is small, though, and Hamilton somehow takes up all of it, and only really has to lean to intercept his path. “You’ll never know peace,” he agrees, his voice a low hum that stops Jefferson in his tracks.  
  
He pats Jefferson on the chest, face close, hand lingering two thudding heartbeats too long. Whatever he sees in Jefferson’s face makes his toothy grin grow wider, and then he brushes past, their shoulders dragging together with the friction of a matchbook. Hamilton’s green coat vanishes around a corner, and Jefferson tries, desperately, to breathe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of the chapter.  
>   
> Say hi and/or keep an eye on update details at [MenaceAnon](https://menaceanon.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. I'm also considering maybe possibly potentially writing a piece or two for Jamilton Week, though that would be slow in the coming because Real Life is kinda busy.

Across the room, in the lee of an immense cherry grandfather clock, Alexander Hamilton leans into his wife, shifts the sleek fall of her hair, and kisses her nape. Eliza blushes and sets her lips, sticking Hamilton in the side with her elbow and then leaning into him.  
  
Jefferson takes a too-large gulp from the bell of his wine glass and rubs the back of his neck irritably, fingers digging below the fabric of his cravat.  
  
He looks at James, whose attention has also drifted away from John Adams’s pontificating in favor of people-watching. It only takes a beat for James to feel his gaze, at which point he immediately frowns, and says, “You’ve twisted it.” He nudges Jefferson’s hand away from his neck, and tugs the cravat back into shape. Jefferson submits to this with ill grace, forcing himself not to jump when James’s fingers curl against the skin below his hair.  
  
“I see I’m boring you both.” John’s round face is worked into creases around a frown.  
  
Jefferson grins at him, clapping him on the back. “You’ll never be as pretty as Dolley Payne-Todd,” he says, and then James is scowling at him, too. Like Jefferson wasn’t going to _notice_ where James was looking, or that he only fusses at Jefferson when he’s nervous.  
  
“Or as diverting as Hamilton’s lewdness,” Adams chides, and Jefferson feels his smile twist out of shape. That fizzy feeling has lingered under his skin, fading and surging, and it has made Hamilton even less tolerable than usual, which is truly an achievement. “Leave him be tonight, will you?” John says. “I’m not in the mood for bastardy theatrics.”  
  
“No one’s ever in the mood for bastardy theatrics,” Jefferson mutters into his wine. “That’s the point. Jemmy go talk to ‘er,” he adds, and James gives him an alarmed look.  
  
“Mind your own business,” he says, staring hard at Jefferson as if that will make him listen. “Thomas.”  
  
Jefferson polishes off his wine, raises his eyebrows, and skulks off. James can either walk over and talk to Dolley, or he can stay where he is and deal with John sans Jefferson’s help. This feels like a clever bit of maneuvering until Jefferson realizes that now _he_ has to find someone to talk to.  
  
Refreshing his glass is briefly diverting, a full five minutes spent grilling/educating a servant about the options before making a selection. Then he is forced to admit to himself that ditching James at a social event is a mistake, but he’s not going to back down now. He’s not even going to _look_ at James. Ideally James is off talking to the pretty widow Dolley, but realistically he’s probably sticking it out with John because he can smell Jefferson’s desperation and is waiting for him to break.  
  
Well he’s just going to have to keep waiting.  
  
Jefferson straightens his lapels and steps out in a swirl of coattails and gracious smiles to look for someone, anyone, interesting. It’s slow-going. Along the way he has to dodge Marcus Pemner, then Mrs. Smythe, then two others, and it’s not that he’s searching for someone specific, it’s just that the thought of a conversation with _those_ people seems intolerable. He winks at someone-or-other’s daughter, and her blush is gratifying but he isn’t really feeling it. When he fetches up, unsuccessful, at the opposite end of the room, he drains his glass and then deposits it somewhat carelessly on top of the pianoforte. Time to admit defeat.  
  
His scans the room, mentally plotting a course through the sea of bodies that has the least risk of him stumbling into an unwanted conversation. But, when his eyes reach the corner where he left James and John, he finds both men gone.  
  
He stares for a moment, dumbfounded. Could James Madison and John Adams be _mingling_? That doesn’t sound right. He searches for the familiar shape of James’s shoulders within the crowd, the gray-blue of his coat, and draws up short. There, with the inestimable widow Dolley. Jefferson catches the cuff of his sleeves in his fingers, the fabric scrunching.  
  
She is, of course, pretty to look at: her smile bright in the sepia of her skin, a cream wrap framing the oval of her face. But James Madison has never in his life been swayed by lust. This, Jefferson knows, is a phenomenon specific to Dolley. James _likes_ her. Not that that is such a rare thing – James is no Thomas – but he is so skittish around women. The force of personality required to draw him willingly into Dolley’s orbit is tremendous. What’s more, Dolley, whose social graces are normally unequalled, has put all of her attention on James Madison to the exclusion of everyone else.  
  
They are, Jefferson reflects, alone together in the amber of their attraction.  
  
He worries the cotton of his shirt against his palm, nails digging through it. He could find John. But John has likely retreated to Abigail, who will see Jefferson and ask what’s wrong. Nothing is wrong, and women are prone to worry, and Jefferson isn’t in the mood. He swipes a glass of wine that a server is bringing to someone else, then waits until he’s sure no one is watching and dips through the doorway to his left, out of the candle-hot hall.  
  
His steps are muffed by a long green rug, music and voices fading behind him.  
  
This is an excellent development, he thinks. Martha, while she lived, was the sun of Jefferson’s universe, and after so long he had despaired that Jemmy would ever know a relationship like that. And Dolley, Dolley of all women is equal to him. Jefferson knew that five minutes after he met her.  
  
What a perfect match.  
  
Jefferson drags his hand back over his skull, until his hair springs free and his fingers are left on the hot skin at the back of his neck. The hall crooks to the left, darker now with only a single three-branched sconce at the halfway point, opposite two windows facing away from the moon. This, he decides, is far enough, and props himself up on the wall between the sconce and an oak door, then swallows the wine in a few impatient gulps that are unworthy of the vintage. This is his – fourth? – of the night, and he can feel the heaviness of alcohol in the muscles of his arms and in the fronts of his thighs, an itchy sort of lassitude. The sensation is not particularly pleasant.  
  
Setting the glass on the floor, he scrubs the heels of his hands down the velvet of his breeches, the soft pile of the fabric yielding to the stroke.  
  
He could go home. He could take himself off to his bed and his books, sleep away the hum of the wine and rise tomorrow with the new day. It’s a good plan. He presses his head back against the wall, resists the urge to slide down it in case anyone does come through the hall, and sucks in a long, deep breath. Then he stoops enough to swipe the wine glass off the floor, and comes to a halt.  
  
The door beside him is ajar. This on its own is unremarkable, but the room is also dark, and, most importantly, Jefferson has just heard a voice from within.  
  
James would have several words to say at this juncture. James is not here. James is with Dolley, and Jefferson is irritable, and on the cusp of being drunk, and he wants to know who is standing about in dark rooms during a party, apart from himself. Scaring someone out of a good time could be the highlight of his night.  
  
His back slides across the wall with a rush of fabric, so he pushes away and creeps forward carefully, silently. Toeing the door open wider, he gets one shoulder in the room and freezes.  
  
Moonlight streams through the tall windows and gleams in the sleek topography of Mrs. Hamilton’s satin dress. Hamilton cradles her cheeks as he kisses her, their faces mostly in shadow, just a silhouette of tenderness and heat, and Jefferson’s fingers flex as warmth pools across his collarbones. He inhales, prepares to interrupt, but one of Hamilton’s hands drifts, thumb skimming down Eliza’s throat to dip beneath her decolletage. She responds with an appealing little quiver of sound, and Hamilton hums deep in his chest, stepping forward into her, his thigh between hers, their hips flush. He drops his head and kisses up the column of her throat, and Jefferson imagines Hamilton’s beard must scratch, imagines how the air must cool over her skin as Hamilton inhales hard over her pulse.  
  
Jefferson holds his breath, slides the rest of the way into the room, and yanks the door closed behind him.  
  
The wood thuds home and the Hamiltons spring apart to stare at Jefferson like deer he has startled in his garden. It occurs to him, belatedly, that he could have crept back out and left them to their doings.  
  
“Oh,” he says, as though he only just noticed them. “Mrs. Hamilton. Secretary.”  
  
Hamilton’s shoulders go back and his chin comes up, squaring up the way he does at the beginning of a cabinet meeting. The sight burns away a bit of the fuzzy current blooming across Jefferson’s skin, and he reacts instinctively, shaking his hair out and propping one hand on his hip. His other hand hangs free with the wine glass dangling between two fingers, and the cut glass catches the moonlight and refracts across Hamilton’s chest like a dappled sash.  
  
And then Eliza Hamilton says, “Mister Jefferson,” and slips between them. Jefferson, who is well and better acquainted with Angelica Schuyler Church, settles back warily on his heels. Eliza does not look like a woman he has just embarrassed with her husband, and he begins to suspect that she’s less worried about him than he is about her. “Thank you for your help fixing my dress, Alexander.”  
  
“‘Course, Betsy.”  
  
She glances between them, lips going thin, and then raises her eyebrows at Jefferson until he sketches a polite bow. “Don’t be long about it,” she says, apparently to them both, smiles at her husband, and swishes out of the room.  
  
As soon as she’s gone Hamilton actually growls at him.  
  
“For fuck’s sake, Jefferson.”  
  
“Classy. I especially liked the part where you humiliated your wife in public.”  
  
Hamilton swings his hands out somewhat wildly at the empty room, head rolling back. “All of Philadelphia is scandalized.” He heaves a sigh and when he pins his eyes back to Jefferson his lip lifts to show his teeth.  
  
“And why are _you_ lurking about?” His eyes slip down to the wine glass and then his brow crumples. “Did you follow us?”  
  
“Did I _follow_ you.”  
  
Hamilton rolls up on the balls of his feet and then walks, heel-to-toe, a slow zig-zag forward. When he stops, he’s so close that Jefferson can see the moon caught in his eyes, and Jefferson swallows, fingers knotting up around the stem of the glass. His other hand digs into the fabric of his breeches, and he leans in, can’t help it, the hot buzz swelling in his ears, his shoulders tensing up. He thinks he’s imagining the heat that comes off of Hamilton.  
  
“Well,” Hamilton says mildly, almost murmuring, “you have been watching my wife all damn night.”  
  
“What?” Jefferson blinks, and then says without thinking, “I haven’t been watching your wife.”  
  
“It’s that or you’ve been watching me. You–” Jefferson makes a face, licks his lips and digs his fingers into his leg, and even in the dim light it’s possible to watch Hamilton catalogue all of this. To watch thoughts shuffling rapidly into order behind his eyes. He blinks, but it’s like watching a key turn in a lock. When his gaze refocuses it comes to an edge so fine it could slice a man open. “You’ve been watching me.”  
  
Jefferson scoffs, and drags himself away from the hot breath of air between them. “Points for creativity, but making shit up doesn’t work outside of Cabinet meetings, either. You’re not that special, Hamilton.”  
  
Hamilton follows, keeping too-close. “You’ve been watching me for weeks now. I thought you were just pissed off because I embarrassed you.”  
  
Backing up doesn’t work, so Jefferson holds his arm out in front of him. But Hamilton just steps forward until his chest is pressed against Jefferson’s wrist, and there’s poisonous glee in his eyes, the beginnings of a familiar, toothy grin tugging at his lips.  
  
“Hamilton, the only person you embarrass is yourself,” Jefferson spits. Which is a plodding excuse for a riposte, but he feels like a beehive in the summer, like there’s a hum under his skin that’s going to shake him apart and his brain is full of sweet, slow honey. Too much wine. Why did he have so much wine?  
  
“Yeah, that wasn’t quite right,” Hamilton concedes. “Now I think you made a mistake, and you’ve been worried I was going to find you out. And,” he says, in the bright voice that means he’s pleased with himself, and catches Jefferson’s chin against the side of his knuckle, “I’m right this time.”  
  
Jefferson flinches out of the warm touch of Hamilton’s fingers, but not quick enough. A pulse goes through him, setting every hair on end, centered around the point of contact.  
  
“Don’t touch me,” he sneers. “What are you doing?”  
  
“And, as usual, I figured it out before you did,” Hamilton coos, then leans in and kisses him.  
  
It’s not deep, or ferocious. It’s nearly delicate. Questing. Jefferson goes perfectly still as slowly, one by one, every part of him ignites.  
  
He means to shove Hamilton away, but the thought tumbles upward in the heat, crumbles to ash and blows away, and when Hamilton tugs his lip between his teeth, bristles scraping his chin, Jefferson opens his mouth and breathes in, instead. The flames catch the kindling, and he breaks, bends, sinks, burning, into the kiss. Hamilton makes a triumphant noise.  
  
There’s a musical crash as the wineglass hits the floor, dropped so he can cling to Hamilton instead. One of Hamilton’s hands catches Jefferson’s hip over his waistcoat, and the heel of the other is at Jefferson’s throat, fingers curling at the back of his neck, a hint of nail digging in, twisting through the fine hairs there. Glass shards grind underfoot as he bullies Jefferson back, back. When he hits the wall a flash of heat sears through him and he writhes, surging deeper into the press of lips.  
  
Hamilton’s tongue licks out, filthy and searching, draws a slick line across Jefferson’s lower lip and then slips into his mouth. Jefferson sucks at it immediately, draws it deeper, hums at the faint taste of whiskey and chocolate.  
  
He feels possessed, overhot, turns his head into Hamilton's palm as he scrubs hair back from Thomas's face. He needs– he needs–  
  
He _needs_ , he thinks, and then Hamilton starts to laugh.  
  
It bubbles against his lips, gleeful, and Hamilton leans back. Jefferson makes a sound and tries to chase him, not done yet, but Hamilton pins him back to the wall by his shoulder.  
  
Hair falls into Hamilton’s face as he lowers his head and his shoulders shake. After a moment, he reaches up and pointedly, roughly tugs Jefferson’s cravat into shape.  
  
“Still a little crooked,” he grins. Teases his fingers against the back of Jefferson’s neck. Jefferson’s head tips back, eyes wide and locked on Hamilton, and that smile, Hamilton’s grin, is _entertained_.  
  
“Well I’ll be damned. That is what you wanted.”  
  
The murky haze over Jefferson’s thoughts crystalizes into panic.  
  
He’s panting lightly, hands trembling, and he stoops, snags Hamilton by the front of his coat and spins him up against the wall.  
  
“How dare–” he coughs, and jostles Hamilton once. He’s smirking, smirking up at Jefferson, toothy and unconcerned. “How _dare_ you, how–” He stares at Hamilton’s grinning lips, and desperately, urgently wants more. Shaking his hands free, he staggers back and tries to breathe.  
  
It’s almost a surprise to rediscover that the room is broad and dark and cool, and utterly unchanged. Jefferson scrubs his palms down the front of his breeches again, and then again, until the fabric is bunched above his knees and static bites his fingers.  
  
When Hamilton pushes off the wall, Jefferson throws his hands up wardingly and staggers back, then nearly jumps out of his skin when his heel crunches against glass.  
  
Hamilton is laughing at him again. “Self-awareness never your forte, huh.”  
  
“There’s something wrong with you,” Jefferson snarls, and the heat in his veins curls up and changes shape. A thread of realization untangles, and he exhales. His shoulders drop and his teeth bare and he steps back in. “That island poison is in your blood, Hamilton, so don’t try to lay this perversion at _my_ feet.”  
  
Hamilton’s infuriating grin snuffs out of existence. This time when he comes forward, Jefferson holds his ground.  
  
Hamilton’s eyes have turned as black as a frozen lake, and something vast and awful is swimming beneath that ice. From the way he moves Jefferson prepares to take a blow, readies himself to retaliate, expects pain.  
  
Hamilton’s fingers lift and settle, cold upon him, and Jefferson’s lips part helplessly under them. The solid foundation beneath his feet is melting, and the world trembles as Hamilton leans in to whisper:  
  
“I’m going to take you apart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for misogyny, internalized homophobia, xenophobia, and infidelity. The encounter between Hamilton and Jefferson in this chapter is _not_ a healthy one, and involves one character springing a kiss on the other. Here there be dragons my friends, so take care of yourselves: if you're looking for something sweet and healthy, then this is not the fic for you.  
>   
>  I'm going to try to catch chapter-specific warnings in my end notes and tag for anything that appears throughout the piece, but if there's anything specific you need warnings for that I might not think of please reach out to me, I'll be happy to add it.


End file.
